It’s a sweet surprise to find a vintage 1914 carousel standing in Bushnell Park. There, by the shadow of skyscrapers and a giant Turkey Oak, a 24-sided pavilion houses 48 hand-carved wooden horses and two lovers’ chariots that swirl around a booming Wurlitzer band organ.

The Knox Foundation brought the carousel to Hartford from Canton, Ohio, in 1974. Jack Dollard, director of the Foundation at the time, and an architect in the city, thought the horses would symbolize Hartford’s restoration.

Then Tracey Cameron, a Hartford resident, spent more than a year restoring the horses to reflect the same fury that Russian immigrants Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein first carved into their faces in 1914. Mass production and changing tastes led to the demise of hand carving and now collectors, buying up single horses, have dismantled hundreds of carousels. As a result, this carousel is only one of three Stein and Goldstein carousels left in existence.